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19 Mar 2018

The most life saving liquid on this planet is
water. Needless to say that without it, the possibility of life is completely a
vague idea. Being a non-renewable resource, its depletion is a major concern
for the mankind. A rapid rise in population has resulted in an over exploitation
of it. Other causes of it can be global warming and unequal distribution of
ground water. If we look at the distribution of water on Earth i.e Hydrosphere,
we will find that Less than 3% of the water of
Earth is freshwater, an amount that includes polar ice caps, glaciers,
groundwater, surface water of rivers and freshwater lakes, and even atmospheric
water. However, the amount of freshwater useable by people and other members of
the biosphere is less than 0.7% of the total. This relatively small amount of
available freshwater is recycled and purified by the action of processes within
the hydrologic cycle.. All these reasons invite a need for
conserving water.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO) of the
United Nations, a minimum requirement of water for a person is about 5 gal (20
l)per day. This is the minimum amount needed for activities like physiological
rehydration, cooking, washing, and other subsistence requirements. This carries
a significant risk of developing such water-borne diseases as cholera,
dysentery, polio, or typhoid, which kill about 25 million people per year. Both
conservation and sanitation are obvious necessities in meeting the huge demand
for freshwater.

Of all the freshwater used
directly by humans, agricultural irrigation accounts for about 70% of the total.
Since irrigation consumes about 70% of the total water, an effective method of conservation
of water can be checked by controlling the activities pertaining to irrigation.
Water conservation can be defined as a
careful and judicious use of water to prolong and better the supply of water.
Even though it appears to be in limelight because of the problems mentioned above
yet this concept is very old.

Several methods have been proposed in the
direction of conserving water such as rain water harvesting, lining water delivery systems with concrete or other
impervious materials to minimize loss by leaking during transport, and by using
drip-irrigation systems to minimize losses by evaporation, Subsurface
irrigation,

Xeriscaping ;or the
cultivation of plants requiring little water such as cacti, succulents, and
shrubs of semi-desert habitat,desalinize seawater etc

Recently several schemes have been proposed in
the direction of conserving water. One of those schemes is scheme Atal Bhujal
Yojana (ABY) formulated by the Union Government to tackle ever-deepening crisis
of depleting groundwater level. The objective of scheme is to recharge ground
water and create sufficient water storage for agricultural purposes. It also
focuses on revival of surface water bodies so that ground water level can be
increased, especially in the rural areas. This scheme will help farmers who
have been severly affected by the acute shortage of ground water for past
several years. Central Ground water board (CGWB) has given permission to Indian
Institute of Science (IISc) to develop ground water flow models and preparation
of aquifer management plans for parts of Karnataka.

We , as individuals, should take utmost care
in personal sphere to prevent its misuse. We should try to use every drop of it
judiciously. Instead of simply throwing away the water when left in the glass
after drinking, we can use that to water plants. Children should be taught not to waste them and use them when in need.We should prevent unnecessary
leakage of water through taps and pipes and get them repaired. We should not
leave the taps in an opened state when not being used. We should focus on
collecting rain water by putting the containers below the sources of dripping
water like roofs, terrace etc

Due to population expansion, the natural
resources are depleting day by day and unfortunately water is one of them. We
should take care to save every drop of this live saving liquid so that we don’t
have to face the dearth of it or else the future of our next generation will be
at peril.

A man is
literally what he thinks, his character being the complete sum of all his
thoughts.

·

Act is the
blossom of thought, and joy and suffering are its fruits; thus does a man
garner in the sweet and bitter fruitage of his own husbandry.

·

Man is the
master of thought, the moulder of character, and maker and shaper of condition,
environment, and destiny.

·

Outer conditions
of a person's life will always be found to be harmoniously related to his inner
state.

·

In the
arrangement of his life there is no element of chance, but all is the result of
a law which cannot err.

·

Good thoughts
and actions can never produce bad results; bad thoughts and actions can never
produce good results.

·

Suffering is
always the effect of wrong thought in some direction. It is an indication that
the individual is out of harmony with himself, with the Law of his being

·

A man cannot
directly choose his circumstances, but he can choose his thoughts, and so indirectly,
yet surely, shape his circumstances.

·

The will to do
springs from the knowledge that we can do. Doubt and fear are the great enemies
of knowledge and he who encourages them, who does not slay them, thwarts
himself at every step.

·

All that a man
achieves and all that he fails to achieve is the direct result of his own
thoughts.

·

He who would
accomplish little must sacrifice little; he who would achieve much must
sacrifice much; he who would attain highly must sacrifice greatly.

·

Dream lofty
dreams, and as you dream, so shall you become. Dreams are the seedlings of
realities.

·

The calm man,
having learned how to govern himself, knows how to adapt himself to others; and
they, in turn, reverence his spiritual strength, and feel that they can learn
of him and rely upon him.The strong, calm
man is always loved and revered.

·Self-control is
strength; Right Thought is mastery; Calmness is power.

My
experience:

It’s a small book consisting of 21 pages.
Even though it’s concise as compared to other books in the field of
non-fiction/self-improvement, it’s something to be treasured for life. It has
to be read again and again to absorb the essence hidden in it which should be
applied in life to enrich its quality. This book seems to have all answers to
the questions that keep troubling me. I feel grateful to have found this book
and will certainly look forward to refer it when in doubt.

16 Mar 2018

Review:
It’s a love story between an IT Techie
named Siddhartha Abhimanyu, Sid and movie Director Isha starting over a cup of
coffee. The entire story revolves around the backdrop of a corporate world with
its own challenges, achievements, success, failure, pressure of meeting the
deadline and emergency. Sid being a multifaceted person acts in a short movie
directed by Isha with other co-actors and it becomes a great success in
YouTube. Amidst all these, their relationship strengthens in due course of time
over small fights or misconceptions. Sid decides to marry Isha before flying to
USA for official work and does so in a surprise arrangement made by close friends.
Life’s plans are not always in agreement with the plans made by us. Isha meets
with an accident on a route to her home with her parents but a strong commitment
to work sends Sid to USA and the news of Isha recovering from comma leads to a
happy ending.

My
experience- First of all, I should
thank the author for sending me a signed copy of the book and my joy knew no
bounds when the novel reached at my doorstep. The length of the individual
chapters has been well maintained to engage the readers. Even though the
narration is simple yet it is captivating for readers. It engages the readers
to read it till the end. There’s a good connection between the chapters and the
sequence of chapters has been well maintained.

Kudos
to the author for his effort in bringing out this fiction to the market.

26 Feb 2018

Sometimes I get surprised by my act of framing
sentences as per the need of the context.Needless to say, this quality of writing which has evolved over the time
for me, is a consequence of inheritance. Yes, I can proudly claim that I
inherit the writing abilities from many of my family members from paternal and
maternal side. The article written below is the testimony of each and every
word written above.

Here, I’m presenting a piece of non-fictional
write-up based on the experience of my maternal uncle, Er.Debabrata Sarangi,
who’s currently working as Assistant Executive Engineer in the department of
urban development under Puri Municipality , Government of Odisha. This piece
has originally written in Odiya and it’s my humble attempt to translate the
entire article in English by keeping intact the emotions and feelings
associated with it.

The reason behind translating this piece is to make
it accessible to non-Odiya readers. When my uncle sent me this handwritten
article in Watsapp, I was so amazed by his writing style that I decided to
translate it at that point of time itself.

Here
it goes:

Greetings to my school

Puri Zilla School , Image source:Google Images

Zilla School of Puri not only earned legend like
Gopabandhu as student but also received five gems of Satya-ridden-age such as
Acharya Harihar, Pandit Neelkantha, Godabarish and Kripasindhu. Madhusudan who
is also regarded as Bhaktakavi has also been a product of this school. Once
upon a time, Radhanatha Rao and Madhusudan Rao played the roles of teacher and
student respectively. In next phase, Madhusudan Rao got appointed as third
temporary teacher but before he could lend his contribution to this school, he
got transferred to Cuttack and another Bengali man got appointed by
then-Inspector Martin Sir to contribute.

In my childhood, while I was half paddling my father’s
old cycle of Raleigh’s, I was attracted by two red coloured buildings of the
city.Out of those red coloured
buildings, one was situated in front of the P.W.D office and the other one was
that of Chandrasekhar College. My father always warned me not to paddle cycle
alone in those areas which encompassed those red coloured buildings because one
of those red coloured buildings was haunted whereas the other one was that of
Zilla School , Puri. In reality, the so-called haunted house was that of telephone
exchange and old Zilla School was held in the Puri college. From that day, the
word Zilla School had subconsciously occupied my mind.

After the completion of primary education in Police
Line School, my father made my admission to Zilla School in the year 1976. I
still remember how he indicated it to the factory of creating learned human
beings. My father also enumerated the names of many students of that school who
were renowned in different fields. I’m unable to recall all names that he said
but all I can faintly remember are the names of Utkalamani, Acharya
Harihar,Pandit Neelkantha, Godabarish, Kripasindhu,Kabibara,Proffesor Rajurao,
then-chief secretary of the state Sudhanshu Bhushan Mishra; my heartfelt
greetings to all of them.

This school was established in 1853 and was regarded
as the best school of the state. Its location was close to railway station
because of which it became the centre of attraction for common man as well as
visitors. The school used to be officially made off during general election and
its gigantic playground would turn out to be a place for conducting various
activities associated with polling under the vast stretch of tent. We felt
proud and happy by witnessing our school to be the host of such important
activities. During Rath Yatra festival, the classrooms would turn out to be
shelters for the police personnel who were assigned duties for smooth and
peaceful conduct of activities. Seeing police personnel at a close proximity
drove away feeling of aversion that once existed in our minds for them.

Many legends have spent their precious days of
childhood in the premise of this school and teachers would always inspire the
students to become administrators, professors, doctors and Engineers. My father
was working as an Engineer in the department of government then and he had a
wish that his son should at least be an Engineer. I started nurturing my
endless dreams in the background of my teacher’s discipline, my father’s
strictness and my mother’s selfless care. My mother had numerous expectations
from me; she wanted her son to be an
Engineer like his father and every person of Puri would respect him and would
often say, “Like father like son”, his son would serve Lord Jagannatha by
staying at Puri as his duty. No matter
how much educated one becomes, how much renowned he grows to be, nothing can
act as a greater fortune than serving his own homeland, Puri ,father took
over the charges of water supply to construction of the road ; so would his son
do, when he rode Raleigh cycle ,my son would ride car. Same thing happened.
My mother’s dreams were converted to reality by meby the virtues that she implanted in me. It has been 1year and 8 months
since my mother has left for heavenly abode, perhaps she saw ‘today’ as yesterday’s bright future.

I joined Puri Municipality as an Engineer in 1994. Wishes
of my parents got fulfilled.It was a
government job and transferred posting was one of its parts. After working 12
years in Puri, I got promoted and transferred to Baripada , this saddened my
mother. She, after wiping out her tears in her Saree, said, “The Jagannatha Temple of Baripada is also
very old. The Ratha Yatra of that place is the second in our state. Lord
Jagannatha has sent you there to implement your experience of Puri’s culture of
working there.” I worked there successfully for 4 years and now have got
transferred to Municipality of Bhubaneswar; the city of temples, capital of the
state. My mother got overwhelmed by hearing this news (even when she didn’t
understand the notion of Bhubaneswar being regarded as Smart City) because according to her, her son was on his path to
success. I worked there for 3 years after which I got transferred to Puri
again. This time, my mother’s happiness knew no bounds. She said cheerfully
that the recent episode of transfer was the result of Lord Jagannath’s
attraction.

She prayed God for her departure and sought his
blessings for me. 8th Apr,2016 she left for a place never to return
again. She returned back to the place from where she had emerged by leaving us
many miles away. My father’s guidance and mother’s blessings became the sources
of inspiration for me to serve my motherland. The happiness of helping friends,
acquaintances and teachers is simply inexplicable. All these reasons sometimes
compel me to think about the divine plan of Lord Jagannatha for providing me an
opportunity to work for the betterment of the society as an Engineer.

The initiation of my journey certainly started with
that legends-making-factory. Teachers like Ramachandra Panda, Brundaban Mishra,
Debendra Mahapatra, Bholanath Dash, Bamana Charan Sahu, Harihara Samantarai,
Prafulla Pattanaik, Sudhakar Mahapatra, Ramesh Chandra Mahapatra, Joginath
Mohanty, Mrs. Shantilata Mohanty,Brajakishore Nayak,Prahalad Shatapathy,
Jagannath Mishra and Dibakar Mishra used to get self satisfaction by
manufacturing legends in that factory. Not only I but also my siblings and two
nieces, in total 9 studied at Zilla School, Puri from class 6th to
11th. My niece, Sonali
Mohapatra made us proud by securing 8th position in class 10th
boards in state of Odisha. I doubt if number of members of a family as much as
9 in number have ever studied in same school! There’s not a single family in
Puri who has not been acquainted with our identities. Someone or the other in
every family has studied with any one of us. That legend-making-factory was
certainly a unique one. Be it the teaching of language, yoga, drama or sport;
every component of it was connected to each other through a chain of
discipline. The success of this school has become possible because of the
combined efforts of the makers; teachers and its stars; students. I feel proud
to have got an opportunity to serve this divine place and the
legend-making-factory.

11 Feb 2018

Nomenclature is an important aspect of one’s
identity. In fact, it’s something that we carry with ourselves apart from
transient materialistic possessions. Primarily, we are identified from the
crowd by the names which we have been given and then follow our actions or
deeds. It is like the labels of our existence. In Indian culture which has
emerged from a joint family system, it becomes an act of showering blessings
from different relatives who come up with so many suggestions to display their
love and affection for the newborns. Everyone has a story behind their names
and I too have a story which I’m going to describe below.

As already mentioned in my earlier posts that I’ve
been blessed to have come to this world with my twin sister. It is apparent
that we must be having similar sounding names, to some extent it is correct.
Initially it was decided by my family members to bestow with us the names of 3
lettered name(as per Hindi or Odiya) as Ankita and Arpita but later my paternal
uncle ( whom I address as Kaka) chose Swati and Sweta to go well with the
surname whose initial too begins with the letter ‘S’. Similarly, our nicknames
were made to settle with ‘Miki’ and ‘Niki’. Interestingly, I being the elder
one among the two, carry both the names (Swati and Miki) in higher order of
alphabetical arrangement as per English dictionary than my sister. This is the
trick that I mostly provide to others when they get confused with our names.
Apart of these two names that primarily reflect our identities, there have been
several derivatives of our nick names according to different family members as
tokens of love and affection. This is the best thing about being in a joint
family. The mere recollection of these names being addressed always brings a
smile in my face and drives away all negativities.

It’s the most common practice to ask for the meaning
of someone’s name during introduction and I have faced such questions. It was
the first time in class 5th when I was enquired about the meaning of my name
and all I know was that it was the name of a star in Indian Astrology. Swati,
Nakshatra, star, forms one of the important member of the Nakshatra system in
Indian Astrology which comprises of 27 stars representing sectors along
ecliptic. Some of the general characteristics of someone having Swati Nakshatra
are: sweet, soft spoken, virtuous, compassionate, mild, quiet natured,
controller of passion and desires, skill in trade, merciful and charitable.

I was never convinced with the answer I had in my
mind regarding the meaning of my name as I always thought it to be a reflection
of some other name. Thanks to Google for the guidance in searching for the
meaning of my name(Thanks to one of my contacts in Quora who inspired me to write something on it , this is how it came out to be); that’s what I found in one of the pages of Wikipedia; this
name can be broken into ‘Su’+ ‘ati’ meaning ‘Great Goer’ or very beneficent. I wonder if the meaning of my name what puts the thought of be a philanthropist in my life! It
was also name of one of the wives of lord Sun in Hindu epics. This name has one
of its parts from the Goddess of knowledge and art, Saraswati.

Swati, seems to be the most common name, during my
school and college days. I could find a bunch a girls sharing same name. When
the name is same, the next thing that sets apart a person form the other having
the same name is the surname. My surname
always seemed to be unique from the rest of my friends for having stayed away
from my home state for several years.

Names
give us identities that set us apart from others. Ever wondered when you share
similar names and surname with someone else, what will be the criteria to
decide the difference? The answer is our Karma; deeds.

A graduate in chemical engineering. I am a co-writer of the blog named creative-constellation. Blogging is the best option to stay in touch with one's work and there is also a scope of improvement after receiving feedback from different readers......... CREATIVE CONSTELLATION is a combined effort(of both) to explore some more forms of writing and develop more instinct towards this.......

**Readers don't get confused me with Swati !! We are different individuals but share same interests mostly.......;)

I hope that you will enjoy reading our blog.....:)So, happy reading and keep reading!!!